


slow down if you want to

by factorielle



Series: KiKasa Week [3]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Behind the Scenes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Rituals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-09 01:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1963011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/factorielle/pseuds/factorielle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a week already, and Kasamatsu still can't let go.</p><blockquote>
  <p>Moriyama-senpai had attempted the <i>we can't win the Winter Cup if you kill yourself training for the Interhigh we've already lost</i> approach two days ago, and gotten fifteen laps around the tracks in the midday sun for his troubles.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	slow down if you want to

There was a clear opening, time and space enough for a fadeaway shot. Kise dribbled instead, changed directions just in time to dodge the interception. He pivoted to face the hoop and took the shot in textbook form. It sank in, as expected: nothing but net.

"What the hell was that," Kasamatsu-senpai demanded, running for the ball.

Kise wiped the sweat from his forehead. "What was what, senpai?" he asked, trying for innocence with a dash of surprise. If he'd been less tired, if something in his leg hadn't been pulling uncomfortably for the past ten minutes, it might have worked.

If he'd been less tired, he might not have tried it in the first place.

"You could have taken the shot five seconds earlier," Kasamatsu-senpai said accusingly. "Play seriously." He went back to the mid court line, got in position. "One more."

"Senpai, we've been at this for two hours," Kise said, not moving from his spot. That didn't get him a reaction. "After a full practice," he added. Kasamatsu-senpai frowned, but that was probably because Kise wasn't trying to block him yet. "For a week," Kise finished, desperation creeping into his voice.

Kasamatsu-senpai shook his head. "I've told you before. You don't have to be here. You can go if you're tired."

"That's not—" Kise started, but thought better of it. Moriyama-senpai had attempted the _we can't win the Winter Cup if you kill yourself training for the Interhigh we've already lost_ approach two days ago, and gotten fifteen laps around the tracks in the midday sun for his troubles.

He tilted his head, took a step forward. "There's a thing I do," he said. "Every year, on my birthday."

Kasamatsu-senpai barely even glanced at him. "Aren't you going home?"

"Not yet," Kise insisted. "What I do is, I write down all the things I really wanted to achieve in the past year, and didn't." It felt absurd, put in the open like that, a ritual that could only ever have meaning for him, but now that he'd started, there was no backing down. "Then I go to the river, rip the list to bits, and throw them in the water. And I decide, for each of them, if I want to try again in the coming year. So that I can focus on the future instead of the past."

Kasamatsu-senpai was certainly looking now at him now. Glaring, in fact. The ball bounced once. Kise braced himself. "Are you telling me to get over it, freshman?"

Kise was in so much trouble. Fifteen laps in the sun would be _nothing_. But he had to stand strong. One way or another, this had to stop. "Do I need to? Captain."

He'd expected a kick, at the very least, but Kasamatsu-senpai froze, fingers gripping the ball so tightly it looked like he might pierce through. More terrifyingly, his eyebrows were joining up in the middle.

Kise really should have prepared this intervention better, maybe with body armor.

But then, out of nowhere, Kasamatsu-senpai blinked. Just once, slowly, and then his shoulders relaxed a little. "Maybe so," he said, bouncing the ball toward Kise. He was still frowning, but Kise had to stop himself from cheering out loud anyway. "But my birthday's already passed."

Kise shot the ball toward the nearest cage, a high arc that was still nothing to Midorimacchi's. It landed, bounced, but didn't fall back out. "That's okay," he said. He wasn't going to cry. He _wasn't_ , that would be ridiculous and counter-productive. "The date isn't really the important part."

* * *

Back in June, Kise had gone back to Tokyo to throw Aominecchi's name in the water in the same spot for the third year running. This time they took a bus, five stops to the closest bank of the Tama River. It was nothing they couldn't have walked, or run, but Kise had suggested that the ride would give Kasamatsu-senpai time to write his list, and shifted his weight to his stronger leg while they peered at the timetable.

Kise resisted the temptation to glance, but even keeping his eyes firmly stuck on the change machine couldn't stop him from noticing that Kasamatsu-senpai was writing a lot more down than 'win the Interhigh'. Did he do that with everything, take on the weight of every mistake and failure and refuse to let go, or even share some of it? How could anyone live like this?

Kise jumped out of the bus first, and made his way down the embankment without looking back.

"Isn't this the kind of thing one should do by themselves?" Kasamatsu-senpai asked when he'd caught up, standing by Kise at the edge of the water.

Kise frowned. "It's an important spell, senpai," he said with a slight whine.  "I have to make sure you're doing it right, or it'll ruin everything." Was it still superstition if you knew it was superstition? He'd tried to ask Midorimacchi once, and regretted it dearly. For someone usually so reserved, Midorimacchi could _talk_ when you got him started. "But I'll be back there," he allowed, even though every part of him was burning to see the list.

He sat on the stairs going up to the street to watch Kasamatsu-senpai stare at the water for eons before he ripped up the sheet, stacked the two halves and ripped them up, and then again and again until they were confetti in his hands. With no wind to speak of, they fell straight down when he opened his fists above the water.

He stayed there, head down, back straight, shoulders tight.

Kise counted three whole minutes before he got up and stepped forward.

"There's something I didn't think of," he said, and saw Kasamatsu-senpai's twitch, like his instinct had been to turn but he'd stopped himself at the last second. "This made me kind of really sad," Kise pushed. "I think I could use a hug right now."

Kasamatsu-senpai didn't move, or react in any way. Kise bit his lip. That was it, he'd gone too far this time, trampled through the flimsy bridge he'd been scrambling to build.

He was just about to backtrack, pass it off as a joke when Kasamatsu-senpai snorted wetly, and turned to him this time, eyes averted. "Fine, then," he said, and Kise did not give him time to recant.

It was beyond awkward at first, arm placement suddenly an insurmountable barrier when Kasamatsu-senpai wasn't really moving; but he got into it soon enough, wrapping his arms around Kise and letting out a breath like a scream against Kise's chest.

Kise held on: too close maybe, too tight, but as long as he wasn't being called on it he had no intention to stop. "I'm sorry," he whispered, after an eternity of pretending Kasamatsu-senpai wasn't shaking in his arms.

He tried not to wince as dull fingernails dug into his back. "I've told you, it's not--"

Kise shook his head. "My responsibility, yeah. You've said. But I'm sorry anyway." It wasn't fair. If last year's defeat had been Kasamatsu-senpai's fault, how was this one's not Kise's? "And I've been thinking about what I can do from now on."

Kasamatsu-senpai said nothing. As per usual, Kise chose to take that as encouragement.

"I think I can copy the others," he said. "Since it worked with Aominecchi, I should be able to do it, as long as I can figure out how to adjust." He'd also need to be lucky, to be _capable_ , but what good was it being called a miracle if you couldn't perform one when you most needed to?

Kasamatsu-senpai took one more deep breath, then relinquished his hold on Kise, who took the hint and stepped back, regretfully letting go.

"Can you do it before the Winter Cup?" he asked, not asking who the others were, not asking whether Kise could do it at all.

"I don't know if I can," Kise admitted, but something like that would never be good enough. "But I will, anyway."

Or die trying.

**Author's Note:**

> For KiKasa Week: Day 4, Doing Something Together  
> Title from Greg Laswell's [I'd Be Lying](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtE0J1FEX9E&feature=kp).
> 
> I am a vile cheater and recycled what should have been the Day 3 fic for this. Boo.


End file.
